


Red Stains

by kenzieann27



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, Mentioned Ben Hanscom, Mentioned Stanley Uris, Not A Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22597714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzieann27/pseuds/kenzieann27
Summary: Richie and Eddie have a talk.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Steve Covall/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	Red Stains

**Author's Note:**

> I first got the idea for this after seeing a piece of fan art on Tumblr a few months ago, but I haven't really written anything with the idea until now, but either way, I hope you like it! This took me all of an hour to write, so there are probably a lot of mistakes.
> 
> There are also quite a few mentions of blood, so I would advise to not read this if you are a bit squeamish with that.
> 
> Tumblr - @kenzie-ann27 or @ask-covier (come say hello!)

A red stain hid his face, which, in hindsight, was probably better, anyway. Even if that moment passed by at the speed of light, that stain still hid the worst part: a face, a broken face, broken and confused and in pain. So much pain.

Richie laid there on those rocks that no longer seemed to be that bad, just as broken and confused, staring with desperation at the person before his eyes. _No_ , he thought. _No, no, no._

It was wrong, Richie knew. It was all wrong.

He wasn’t in pain, he wasn’t scared, but the blood was still there. So much more, in fact, than there originally was. That hole- not the physical one, but the weird emotional one that Ben probably mentioned at some point- was still there as well. But he, Eddie, was okay. As okay as a dead man could be, but he seemed more than that. He seemed at peace.

“Eddie?”

They were both on their sides, a situation Richie did not remember, but it still felt the same to him. He was terrified of what this was, whatever it was. Eddie, though, had a soft smile on his face, even with those tired eyes, and reached out his hand to hold Richie’s cheek.

“You are okay,” he said, keeping those eyes on Richie as he let out a familiarly small laugh. _A happy laugh_ , as Richie would describe it to Stan in confidence one day at the quarry, _a laugh that someone could never get tired of_.

But Richie did not feel okay, not there, not then. He shook his head, but that warm hand remained there.

“You are okay,” Eddie repeated, this time without the added laugh, willing Richie to just understand.

“Stop saying that, please,” Richie whispered before letting out a broken sob. “This isn’t okay at all… it’s just… none of this is okay. And I miss you, I- fuck, dude. I can’t do this shit. I’m like… wrong. What I’m doing is wrong.”

“What you’re doing is okay, Richie,” he paused as Richie reached out, softly grabbing his arm. “You’re just… moving on. And that means you are okay.”

“It’s not okay.”

“You’re not forgetting me, it’s not like that, but it’s not moving on from anything, really. We were just friends, you know that. It wouldn’t have mattered if this happened three years ago or in thirty years from now. We were spoiled long ago, buddy, and there’s such a big world out there for you. We don’t have to do this anymore. It’s okay, and you’re okay.”

“He loves me. I know he does.”

“What’s so bad about that?”

“It’s… wrong. I’m here with you and he’s out there with me.”

Eddie laughed again, rolling his eyes as he turned on his back. Richie didn’t move, instead moving to put his forearm under Eddie’s head.

“You’re not getting it if you’re still trying to protect me,” Eddie commented seriously, looking upwards. “He’s up there, out there, and yet you’d rather stay down here with me. Clinging to some false hope.”

Richie’s eyes moved from looking at Eddie’s face to his chest, a large stain of blood spread out over him. He didn’t seem to mind it, he just continued to stare up at the rocky ceiling above. Richie forced himself not to cry at the sight of it, that stain. He could almost smell it, that harsh metallic scent that never went away during these conversations.

He watched as it happened again, as it usually does; a drop of blood, due to the gravity of laying on his side, slowly making its way from the broken left lens over the bridge and to the undamaged right lens on the other side. Richie envied that bridge, how it seemed so small. That drop of blood had no trouble getting from broken to fixed. _No, not fixed_ , he thought. _It was never broken to begin with_.

“Tell me about him.”

Eddie had turned to look at Richie, a small bit of hope in his eyes. He reached back out and pulled Richie’s glasses off of his face, looking at them before wiping them on his shirt. Richie had mentioned this stranger to Eddie a few times in these conversations, Steve. Just his name, however, though that rosy blush that occurred with his name told him more than Richie himself ever did.

“He’s just… nice. Like, _too_ nice, sometimes. And he’s so funny, too, like… just the way he looks at things is the best.” Richie wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, a warm smile on his face. “He loves the beach and his stupid ugly shorts. And he loves basketball, like a ridiculous amount. His hair is so soft all the time, when he grows it out a little bit it gets sort of curly and he doesn’t like it, but I just love it so much. And sometimes he’ll wear a hat and I never say anything, but he looks so cute in hats. And he’ll get sad when I want to do stupid shit since he can’t do that stuff ‘cause he’s got like vertigo and it makes him sick but I don’t care because when he’s sick he can’t wear his contacts and he’s got these dorky glasses and they’re always just a little crooked no matter what he does. His nose is such a weird shape but weird in the best way because he sleeps on his stomach and I’ll wake up and his face is just right there and his nose gets twitchy sometimes when he sleeps and it’s really funny but I don’t laugh because then he will wake up and give me that grumpy face of his,” Richie paused to do a poor imitation of Steve’s grumpy face, scrunching up his nose and squinting his eyes. “And it’s so fucking cute and I’ll let him be mad at me forever if it means I get to see that face.”

“What’s the best thing about him?”

“He’s got this laugh, I think, like when he’s trying not to laugh- no, no. His smile. His smile is the fucking best. Like, he’ll smile sometimes when he gets his picture taken or whatever but that’s not a real Steve smile. The smile is like… when he’s playing with the dog or talking to his mom on the phone or even just when he’s making his tea in the morning. He’s already in a good mood, but then he’ll look over at me and he just gets this smile. I don’t know how to even describe it. It’s just one of those smiles that makes everything better. Everything about him makes everything better and I just… he’s great.”

“Never took you for the romantic type, Tozier.” Eddie smiled as he handed the glasses back to Richie. He gestured to the glasses vaguely. “I can’t get the blood off those things, sorry. I really just smeared it.”

Richie nodded, moving his arm out from behind Eddie’s head slowly. “I mean, your shirt is all bloody too, so that probably wasn’t a smart move on your part.”

They both laughed at that, somewhat sensing that this was different. Neither of them mentioned it, of course, as it wasn’t a bad thing. To Richie, this was similar to coming home after a long tour. Being able to just open that front door, leaving behind all those frustrations and those annoying thoughts and just being home. That jumpy black lab running over to greet you, that short man on the couch looking over his laptop to give you that smile, that was home, that was up there.

But this, down here, this was that front door, that one last thing you need to deal with before you’re able to go back to being yourself.

“You are okay,” he said.

* * *

He often ended up in this situation, on those bad nights. Hugging a pillow, clinging to it as if it were someone else, as if someone else was not there, hugging him. They were asleep, so none of them could really be to blame for this situation, but neither of them would complain when they’d eventually wake up.

Steve’s grip tightened around Richie’s middle; his head pressed up against his back. He fell asleep on his stomach, most nights, but sometimes he ended up like this. Richie, on the other hand, relaxed at the tightened grip, shifting a bit as his own grip on the pillow in front of him loosened. Of course, that is until a certain dog would inevitably jump up on the bed directly onto his legs, but for now, things are okay.


End file.
